


if i could stop the wars for you;

by bloodynargles



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Gen, Royalty AU, callie's attemting a multi chapter? oh maker praise us, royal au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-11-05
Packaged: 2018-04-18 12:33:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4706192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodynargles/pseuds/bloodynargles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She sits upon a throne weaved with gold, the crown on her head worn by many kings before her – if she had been crowned as her husband's wife, she may have been a Rutherford of Ferelden, but a Trevelyan of the Free Marches? None such persons had remembered a day quite like this, one where the monarch takes a queen of foreign descent as his own, presses her to his breast and declares her of Ferelden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the heir with golden hair;

**Author's Note:**

> fuck, timeline? uh, Alistair is a warden, stays warden, Loghain is dead, Anora can't rule on her own as a queen and so forth that strikes a battle between the noble houses of Ferelden - which for the universe includes the Rutherfords, a long presumed dead line of nobility - and Cullen's father claims the throne. Set in the game ratio of Inquisition, and that whole thing will be addressed, though possibly in a smaller capacity. All countries of Thedas have monarchs and Starkhaven is ruled by an extension of the Trevelyan royal family.

She sits upon a throne weaved with gold, the crown on her head worn by many kings before her – if she had been crowned as her husband's wife, she may have been a Rutherford of Ferelden, but a Trevelyan of the Free Marches? None such persons had remembered a day quite like this, one where the monarch takes a queen of foreign descent as his own, presses her to his breast and declares her of Ferelden. Her woven train glides behind her as she walks toward the Maker's chosen to reign before us, golden curls dancing down her sides as their hands slip into one another, their King makes a face at his love and for a moment the populous saw what the Maker had. A man and woman in love more so than anyone had predicted, they may bear the crown, may walk the same corridors as the Theirins themselves, but they were two people in love. And shall it be that love unites Ferelden against an evil once more?

 

-

Her father had once said she was as fair as those Orlesian beauties who were always prim and proper and she did her utmost to remind her papa that her mother had been of the Valmont bloodline, to which he smiles sadly and she never did quite understand the look in his eyes. Princess Rosalina had been married to her father during the beginning of the Age, from what she has read in texts was that they were in love and it was a true Maker's miracle that Orlais and her grandparents had found this match in them. Married as soon as her mother's birthday had passed they lived for long, Rosalina becoming Queen of the Free Marches when her father's father had passed on to be at the Maker's side. Then her mother had borne her, dying before she could press a small kiss to her tiny forehead and the texts were numerous in size and number, some even Ariette's own eyes could not understand in the small candlelit room beside the library.

 

She were twenty-three now, and the world around her had changed sufficiently, her father Frederick I had remarried an Anitvan princess and they had had two children since she had been crowned queen. It is not as if her father regarded her as a bastard to the throne, none of the such, no – her younger brother Jacob was to succeed their papa and she was to marry before she was thirty and unable to bear children. It was a brutal moment, to have it laid out before her. Her life, all of her dreams for a future in Ostwick, they were gone in a blink of an eye, to be given to a man she had never met. A king in his own right, of Ferelden no less. They spoke of him with such gentleness, as if his family had not been through such troubles to ascend the throne at Denerim – they spoke of him like he was the beginning of all her dreams and desires, but in all honesty he was the start of her _problems_.

 

His eyes were hard when they met, the seams of her gown flitting along the marble floors in Kirkwall, a place he had served as a soldier in for many years before ascending the throne across the sea. His mother a fair Ferelden beauty, of a noble line that had been muddled along the way, through the bloody history that peppered the smallest country's history pages. The Fifth Blight was most recent, and it lead to a battle that none could have predicted the winner of, the father of the man she was to marry emerging the victor from the spoils of the last Theirin's death. Her betrothed was barely the age of twenty at the time, and descriptions range from soft spoken and kind hearted to cold eyed and enclosed – she was well read upon the subject of Ferelden and its politics, though her curious mind had previously gotten her in many troubles. Such as a novel that the chantry had banned, hidden high up between books of tactics, ones that her father had mistakenly had let her have free roam of once. Purple eyes had widened at the words on the parchment and had stuffed it back into its place, a rosy red blush the only indicator of what she had accidentally read.

 

“Your Grace Princess Ariette.” His tone was cautious, as it should be in a land with a princess standing in front of you, but yet, such formalities were only acceptable around their families, or royal gatherings, no? “Is that your full name, then? His Highness Prince Cullen of Ferelden?” Her words seem to startle him, the playful edge in her eyes catching him off guard, a stutter forming in his seemingly seamless fluid movements. “N-no...?” A laugh bubbles from her chest at the confused look upon his features, her right hand clutching at her corset, fingers playing with embroidered beads and crystals that cover the expensively made royal gown. “Then why I ought to call you that? Hm? We are to be married, yes? Who needs formalities when you are to share a bed?” Golden orbs widen at her candid words and Ariette wonders for a moment if her judgement of 'needs to be loosened up' was wrong in all aspects. Anxiety spikes at the thought of their humour being of different origin, if she had just doomed her betrothal to be nothing more than a happy-less marriage, an empty behind the eyes picture of royalty.


	2. the light of a thousand days;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The emotions that fracture his reincarnated body are hidden behind formalities and are only seen in the night when the fade is pulling at him and he wakes to an empty bed and a city, a country full of sleeping people dependent on him keeping it together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i don't update this a lot, but i really love this fic so much. a long chapter for all of you that were holding on for this, sorry that it took so long! x

For a moment he stutters, this woman was _real_ and all of Mia's fond jabs at her brother's expense seemed to converge at once in his vast mind, colliding and oh, Maker he needs to pay attention to _her_ and not the demons that plague him through the night. Part of him whispers about her reactions to that unpleasant part of being a former soldier, the waking nightmares that leave him sobbing when the moon is high and the next day is unpredictable. He opens his mouth and closes it again, for lack of words that seem to escape him so very easily. “My lady..?” The emotions that fracture his reincarnated body are hidden behind formalities and are only seen in the night when the fade is pulling at him and he wakes to an empty bed and a city, a country full of sleeping people dependent on him keeping it together.

 

She laughs again and his eyes notice her nervous picking before she reaches out for his arm, his urge to flinch at another's touch almost invisible and very much fought to stay down. There were moments for scaring people away, this was not one of them. “Should you protest if I call you Cullen, and that only?” She pulls at her bottom lip with her teeth, the innocence in her eyes almost leaving an unsettling feeling in his stomach, as if the Maker had blessed him with something so innocent and precious that he should destroy it. He swallows heavily, her feather-light touches on the underside of his wrist pulling his mind out from the terrifying depths it lives in, “I will not, my-” Her eyebrow raises and he relaxes slightly, knowing somewhere that she must be feeling as he was, her breasts heaving in the tight corset that restricted her so very much into the small label that was to be a _woman_. A _princess_ who held his own heart nonetheless. “- _Ariette_.” When shall be the moment he stops thinking of her as an unknown, and more a part of himself? Would he even notice the change, at all?

 

“See, it is better, is it not? To call someone by their given name and not a title wrapped up in formalities?” Her hand curls around the bare skin on his wrist and he almost shivers at her touch, the feeling of her soft uncalloused fingertips drawing light patterns sending sparks across his skin, goosebumps raising at her mere touch. “Means it is less awkward after we _are_ married, I do not particularly wish to address you as the King of Ferelden every time we lay eyes on one another.” A light smile spreads across his face at that, she reminded him of mother, of Rosalie and her out of the box babbling, about the standards of how women are treated and how a man should treat his wife as a person and not a pretty porcelain doll to be paraded around. Rosalie would adore her – it is a fair chance that mother already does, selecting a fair woman, so innocent in treatment of others and the world around her, someone to counteract his sometimes brash outlook on the world. Always the hammer, never the one holding it. “I suppose so.”

 

Perhaps she sees him as a little dull, always wrapped up in his own thoughts, never one for long responses unless its is absolutely needed. She was _trying_ to get him to speak, he could tell, but for the life of him he did not quite know what to say. Or how to say it. Her beauty was unfathomable, long golden curls falling down her back, a small circlet of copper gold weaved into flowers in her hair, and those bright violet eyes peeking out unto the world, full of life and valour, innocence and beyond all else, queen-like wiseness. The intelligence that she clearly sprouted with every eloquent word was something he had never seen in a woman this young, but then again all he saw from women in his early years was harshness, or the innocent eyes of mages. He was impressed, to say the least.

 

He was almost surprised at how quickly his heart decided that she would be the one. Almost.

 

“Do you like reading, Cullen?” He'd gotten lost in his thoughts again, hadn't he? Maker's breath. They were almost into the small garden, his feet numbly taking him down steps he did not realise were there, before. His eyes find hers, sympathy alight in them but she brushes it off, looking up at him with wide eyes. She was trying, and it was only polite to give in. “I doubt that I read as much as I should, but yes. Seems out of character, but you could probably find me most in the history libraries in Denerim.” “Oh! Do you have a favourite Age, or is it just the events that capture you?” He laughs softly at her enthusiasm, common ground was not an easy thing to find, it seems. He hopes they have a lot more in common than this, but he supposes they will learn of each other as they grow together. Loving her, accepting her into his heart, his _bed_ , would not be a problem. He suspects that he could, already, should she wish it, but only if so. Her consent is something that he values, above all else. Their marriage, their life together, it will all be bound by Ariette's consent – he knows men who do not see it that way, and he furthers himself from them as much as humanly possible.

 

She's pulling slightly on his arm, leaning her light weight on him, her warmth seeping through his thick clothing, the standard for this date, his mother fussing over him before she sent him off, making him promise that he act the gentleman, but Cullen was not sure he ever would not. “I rather like the battles, but then I suppose that that rather _is_ in character of me.” A soft smile pulls at the corner of her mouth, and somewhere Cullen thinks of kissing her, but she seems to think of the same thing, stopping in front of him to lean up on her tiptoes and press a feather-light kiss upon his cheek. Close enough to his lips to spark interest from him, but further enough away to warrant it appropriate for this stage in their brief courtship. His hands snake around her waist, pulling her closer, a soft laugh falling from her lips at the sudden closeness of their bodies, her eyes crawling ever so slowly up his face, lingering on his lips for far too long before her blown wide pupils meet his own. “It is very nice to finally meet you, Cullen.” Her voice is silk and he falls even further at the quietness of her words, a whisper only for him, breaths passed between two lovers who barely knew each other but they _knew_. His heart takes ahold of his brain, of his body, and he kisses her, a hand pulling from her waist to curl around her neck, bringing her head close to gain sweet leverage at her mouth. Her hands are on each side of his face and Cullen has never known a kiss so _nice_ , so sweet for such an undeserving man like he. But he will give her love, and life, should she wish it. He will give her the mountains and the skies above them, a marriage they will speak of for ages to come and perhaps a child or two to cement their stake in history.

 

Their lips part and he misses them the second they leave his own, her purple eyes searching for something, _anything_ , and he smiles, the warmth reaching his golden orbs and placating her need for assurment. He presses a soft kiss to her lips that lasts only a moment, but that is all it needed to, his forehead pressed against hers, her finger softly tracing the scar on his lip absently. “You as well, Ariette.”

 

He will give her this world and the next. He will give her _everything_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that looks like an end end, but its not, don't worry! im not completely certain what i have planned for this story, but i know it will be good! ♥


End file.
